


Catch a Stolen Breath

by BlueRam



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Dark Fantasy, M/M, Tumblr Prompt, Valentine Special give away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 10:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13679424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueRam/pseuds/BlueRam
Summary: “How does it feel to know that only I have this power over you? That with every whisper I utter against the delicate shell of your ear you wander further and further away from the roads of Elysium, my love.”





	Catch a Stolen Breath

Chariots. Yes, the rains that rushed over the horizon, ushered in by racing dark clouds heavy and swollen sounded like chariots. The steady thud of horse hooves on swampy roads. The flash of mud against finely carved wood and the pull of chains that jostled the further the chariots journey extended.

Sesshomaru released a silent breath, one that misted over in the cold morning air as the ocean below their isolated citadel raged for a storm that would never come. Thunder rumbled as it usually did, the sun but a myth that could never be proven true, their world forever plunged into a lasting darkness that stained the lips, stained the soul.

“Beautiful isn’t it? The never-ending darkness that has plagued our world before the citadel ever existed and the birth of Witches, Skinwalkers and the Lugaru were ever concepts. Whezken as we know it,” Sesshomaru barely flinched at the deceptively sweet voice of his mother.

A voice like the sirens his father would say. If his father hadn’t abandoned them for the so-called Promised Land with his lover and unborn child then in tow. As it was his mother had become what many feared, a bitter royal yokai that ruled with a callousness not seen in ages past.

“Sacrilegious really for such kind to exist. A mockery of the gods that granted us favour. Granted us the right as supreme beings!” The woman finally stepped from the shadows to stand beside her son. She was just as beautiful as him, would have been more if not for her soft petal lips drawn into a disgusted scowl.

Her claws dug into the railing of the balcony, her heavy robes fluttering in the wind behind her. Like a maiden or lad on his wedding night who would pay tribute to their gods, wheat twined into a crown upon their heads and the scent of sweet sage and bluebells heavy in the air.

“Were it not the gods who created them? The ones who breathed life into their lungs as our world was plunged into darkness?” Sesshomaru glared at the procession of sailors who gently steered their ships towards the misty islands in the far distance.

Hilly mountains covered by lasting fog and strange lights that swayed to a hypnotic rhythm, be it the thud of drums or the soft thrill of bamboo flutes. Sesshomaru could almost fool himself to believe he could see the Whezken. Free-spirited folks who wore little and praised the gods in dance and trance. Lost in the sway of their hips around a raging fire with the moon high in the sky, beating rhythms against cured goatskin and frolicking among the heavy foliage of aged trees that existed long before, Whezken, yokai and perhaps the gods themselves.

“The Lugaru who howls by the moon and worships our mother Artemis, the fey who are as trustworthy as they are not and worship our mother Ate or the witches who are as resourceful as any youkai, just as powerful if not more who worship our mother Hecate? Sacrilegious?” Sesshomaru scowled at the very thought, a pain like no other tearing through his chest. A pain enough that he visibly winced, garnering a look of distaste from his mother who watched with knowing eyes.

Flashes of memories long past flickered like an old play. Sharp green eyes, the rippling of muscles across a heavily scared back as an axe swung through the air. The smell of fresh wood and flaming fires as hot as the fires that were seared into his skin by callous hands. A touch that slipped between his trembling thighs… left him gasping for precious breath. A breath stolen and that would never be given back as soft whispers cut sweet death into his very being.

_“How does it feel to know that only I have this power over you? That with every whisper I utter against the delicate shell of your ear you wander further and further away from the roads of Elysium, my love.”_

“How…quaint. You  _love_  him, still love him, and I here I thought you would never prove the same disappointment your father was.” Her scornful voice ripped through Sesshomaru like a blade. The truth of his feelings hard to swallow in light of his mother’s disappointment.

She was—he never much cared for anyone’s opinion, didn’t care if he broke hearts or stole them. Plebeian sentiments that had no place in his life, yet, his mother…his mother was his world. As much as he would deny it he had always sought her approval, her support when his father had left them and shunned him for a son he did not yet know and a woman who was no yokai, not even Whezken. A woman who blasphemed and spat upon the foundations of their world. Or so his mother said. Truth was hidden in lies as much as lies were hidden in truth.

His father left for the Promised Land where the sun was said to still exist. Where there was no pain, no suffering. Just the ray of sunshine on skin that must be warm and golden. His father made it sound so beautiful when he tried to explain to him his reasons for leaving.

Tried to explain that one day he would understand, one day there would be someone who would bring him to the Promised Land.

“That Whezken witch does not love you Sesshomaru. He is but a taint to society with no prospects. A savage like the lot of them who sacrifice to a false god and basks in Hade’s shame. Honeyed words that speak of a promised land will only see your demise!” She grabbed him by his arms, silver claws digging into his arm as she forced him to look into her sharp gold eyes.

It was then that he saw her madness. The way her eyes flickered frantically as if being watched or stalked by a predator much too powerful for her. The sky rumbled ominously and the sailors that set out for the misty islands song cheerful songs as they set off to trade goods in kind to return to the citadel.

A citadel ruled by a mad queen who would sooner see all Whezken kind dead yet would still consume their produce.

“You were a fool to fall into bed with such filth. It sickens me that you would willingly submit—”

“Unhand me,” His mother stilled at the sudden coldness in his eyes. The restrained anger in the clench of his fist and the stiffness of his shoulders.

He had never spoken to her in such a way and not for the first time the image of Inu no Taisho overlapped with her son. Her heart hammered against her chest as she thought about her beautiful son being stolen by that retch. The retch that stood tall and proud even as she threatened his life, ordered her men to warn him away from the one thing precious to her.

Harry his name was.A simple name for a man she loathe to admit was anything but. A witch from the line of Whezken healers that courted death and danced naked under the moonlight, uncaring of propriety in reverence to both Hecate and Hades.

The one that took her precious son apart. Placed under the spell of a cursed lover as he forced sweet songs from his lips under the torrent of our water in the dead of night. Sesshomaru had fallen to the base act of savages, wrapped around his so-called love as that beast thrust within, savouring his sin. Silver hair plastered against alabaster skin, claws buried in thick black curls—

“If you dare set foot outside of this citadel, I will disown you! I will strip you of everything that made you and exalted prince. You will be nothing but a shame that I will sooner hunt down and kill before you disgrace me. Before you  _leave_  me like your father did!” She hissed that man’s words filtering through her mind, repeating like the song of a bard that had lost his mind.

“ _Forsaken by the gods. You poor soul, you seek to rip him from me, to taint the love I have for him with your wickedness. In the end, you’ll watch as your precious jewel will return to the arms of a Whezken witch. Bask the worship I have for him be it a year or a millennium from now. He knows I wait when he no longer fears your honey poisoned words.”_

“Do you understand me, Sesshomaru?! Do you—”

“I see now, my adoration of you was but a childish dream. To seek your approval over my own feelings lest you reject me. I will leave Citadel, I will find him again. The one I betrayed for a woman so steeped in madness that she would threaten to kill her own child for simply loving,” Sesshomaru’s smile was bitter as he pulled away from the woman that was his mother, uncaring of the blood that beaded through the skin her claws had broken.

He watched as she stepped back, horrified, her skin paling. He could only imagine what she was thinking as that disbelief turned to raw hatred and disgust!

She squared her shoulders and straightened her robes before walking past her son, heels clicking against marble floors. Before she completely left, the song of sailors and their merriment louder than ever, she stopped back facing him.

“I’ve sought a perfect match for you. Kagura of the Jorogumo tribe. You will see her tonight, court her and win her favour. She will be the one you love because I will it so!” She glanced over her shoulder. Sesshomaru did not face her, eyes trained on the Misty Island.

He was a beauty that not even the greatest of artists could capture with their pretty oil paints and blank canvases. Deceptive in his delicate appearance where he was cold unforgiving steel forged from greatest of holy fires. A blessing by the gods.

 _“He will find me. How terrible you must feel to know that like that woman before me who stole your husband, I will steal your son. Me, a Whezken savage who worships the vile Hades”_  Harry, that man, the Whezken Witch mocked her in her waking hours. Cruel with his words, shark-like smirk that dared her to deny his truth. A confidence and equal wickedness that left its terrible mark on her child’s very soul.

“Sesshomaru, my precious child. The only thing that I will ever love…know that if you do this…” Those cold golden eyes finally looked her way, locks of silver fluttering in the wind, the flash of lightning painting his skin just as silver, his beauty harsh and unforgiving.

The cold grip of fear seized her heart as she saw it. The image of him in the witch’s arms, eyes locked. Startling green and untarnished gold and they danced under a light that should not exist. The light of the sun their feet planted firmly on the lush green grass of the Promised Land.

“If you do this, you will be dead to me. As dead as your father the disgrace that he is! I will hunt you down and I will not stop until all that you are is dead. Be it your lover or the children you think to carry within you.  _His_  children. abominations.”

“Then cloak me in white, Mother. Burn my body on a pyre and light a flame at my vigil,” Sesshomaru whispered. He knew what he must do.

He would atone for his sin. He would find Harry again and pray that over the years that he had left him, he had not moved on.

His one true love.

His mother swallowed tightly, saying nothing else as she finally left him to his peace, the sky rumbling.

Forever rumbling.

* * *

Harry wiped the sweat from his brows as he swung his axe, wood splitting in two the join the growing pile he had started on even before the break of dawn, or what one could call dawn when there was no sun.

Birds chirped loudly and the mist was carried away by the gentle wind that traversed their island.

Already he could hear the laughter of the Faye kind and the scurrying of the Lugaru who sought shelter after a night under the moon.

Villages came alive with smoking chimneys and the merchants who prepared their ware for the Sailors who would arrive from the Citadel for trade.

“A husband then if not a wife! You can’t wait for him to come back to you, Harry! He willingly left and when he did, you—he took your heart with him! Take it back, marry someone and be happy!” Ginny scowled from her seat perched on the tree limb overhead where Harry continued to chop wood.

A fire was going ways by the sprawling cottage the man had built himself by a nearby spring. His adopted sister Luna sweetly singing in that airy way she always did, a pixie perched atop her head snickering away when Luna went off key.

She wasn’t much of a good singer on the best of days.

Ginny’s attention was stolen when Harry suddenly grunted, cursing when a chip of wood pierced through his thumb.

“Harry—”

“Enough, Ginevra! Who I marry or won’t marry is none of your business!” He snipped, throwing down the axe to compress the flow of blood that bubbled to the surface. Said woman huffed, carding her hands through short red hair before jumping from her perch landing deftly on her feet.

Harry paid her no mind, and perhaps it was better that way as he observed him. Harry, he was something of a dark fantasy. The talk of their village really. A strong Witch with a strange connection to both Hecate and Hades. The one who had a collection of skulls in his quarters scored with runes that glowed a poisonous green.

He spoke to dead as much as he spoke with the living. He heard the voices of the gods clearly and spoke of them as if they were old friends as much as he worshipped them.

There was something forbidden about him. One could never quite tell if he was good or if he veered towards the dark side of life.

He was…admired and sought after. A want to be left in the hearts of sweet maidens and young lads as they watched him go by with starry eyes.

Harry was handsome in a roguish way. Bearded, hair a chaotic mess of curls so often pinned to the top of his head highlighting his faded undercut, a deep car extending from his brow through his eyelids and down to his lip.

No one knew the source of that but the very being she tried to dissuade Harry’s heart from. Sesshomaru, the royal yokai prince that had left Harry so easily in light of his mother’s disapproval.

Weak.

“He doesn’t deserve you and if he knows what’s good for him—” Ginny paused at the snap of twig that echoed in the thick forest, silenced only by the chorus of trees that swayed to the tune of cold winds.

“He will leave you be. Let you seek a true mate that will give you what you want. Proper children, a family…a happy ever after where you had none.” Ginny scowled, seemingly un-phased when sharp green eyes suddenly looked up and pinned her in place.

Seemingly for who could truly withstand the full attention of those cold eyes that resembled Tom Marvolo Riddle known as Voldemort. A vile witch that left a bitter taste in the mouths of all Whezken. One that wreaked havoc on the masses after his yokai love was stolen. Murdered, simply left to die in his arms.

A sacrifice made by Whezken elders to see the myth that was the sun again.

The witch that was Harry’s ancestor. A madman who tainted the Elder’s sacrifice with the bloodshed of so many innocent Whezken, never mind that those Whezken had killed his lover. Killed his unborn child, the only child he cared for.

She shivered when he continued to stare without saying a word. Assessing her as if she were prey, especially when his head slowly tilted to the side, eyes narrowed.

“Hermione put you up to this,” Ginny wondered if Harry ever realized the fear he drove into all those around him. There was something about his tone that was…outwardly. Dark and deep often times menacing at moments. As if it was not Harry Potter alone that was there.

Ginny shivered, wrapping her arms around her selfish she shrugged as nonchalantly as she could.

And to think she called Sesshomaru weak when it was he who accepted Harry without unfounded fear. Slept in his bed without care, silver hair sprawled across Harry’s chest where he often laid.

Harry frowned before ultimately dismissing the entire conversation, eyes flickering to the darkened forest before picking up his axe once more and continuing to chop wood, sweat rolling down his back and soaking through his shirt.

“He is my happy ever after, Ginevra. He has always been, leave it at that and carry on with your life!” Harry muttered, grunting as he resumed his task.

“That what I fear, Harry. That…you’ll wither away and then, in the end, become just like—” Ginny did flinch when Harry shot her a sharp look, throwing his axe to the ground none too gently before storming off to the river banks in the distance.

Ginny released a shuddering breath, anger clouding her vision when the trees rustled. She turned to stare at their uninvited guest, dislike simmering in the pits of her belly.

“You shouldn’t have come. I hoped you would have left him in peace.”

“Says the woman who would accuse him of becoming like his most hated ancestor for loving a Yokai prince,” Ginny flinched as the cruel rebuke. Only cruel for it was the truth from one she hated.

“If you betray him ag—” She began, scowling in anger when the now revealed yokai prince simply walked past her, dismissing her words as useless drivel with a stony resolve, his footsteps silent.

“I need no warning from the likes of you, Ginevra. As always, you’re beneath me.”

She watched as the much too beautiful man headed towards the river banks, slowly nodding his head in greeting when Luna cheerfully called his name.

Oh, how she hated him.

* * *

Harry frowned as he sat with his feet dipped into the freezing river waters. River grass licked at his heels and sand filtered through his toes as he leaned back on his hands, head tilted to the sky.

As usual, thunder rumbled above in the forever grey sky. Lighting painted streaks of brilliant white, yet unlike the citadel at present, no rain fell.

He barely reacted when the shuffling of soft feet sounded behind him or when the scent of cherry blossoms filled his senses.

“And so, my wayward lover has returned, or is he still?” There was no answer, only the shifting of familiar heavy robes. Harry was content to remain in silence, head turned to the sky as the gods whispered in his ear as one.

“No answer? Do I dare say Sesshomaru the great, the bloodstained prince is lost for words before a lowly Whezken?” Harry mocked, slowly staring over his shoulder only to freeze at the sight before him.

His heart skipped a beat. This, he would never have expected this! Sesshomaru with his knees folded under him, his forehead pressed to the ground, and hands flat beside him. A silent plea for…

For what?

A Yokai prince did not bow his head in a plea for forgiveness. A Yokai prince did not show weakness. A Yokai prince must feel no shame.

Harry frowned, he did not like this. The sight was unnatural as unnatural as the sudden quiet of the forest that watched them with bated breath.

“Harry I—” Sesshomaru did not get out another word. Harry was suddenly kneeling before him, his fingers hesitant at first before burring in thick silver hair.

Sesshomaru swallowed tight, not knowing what to do with the sudden burst of emotion that threatened to overtake him.

He shuddered as those familiar fingers that inscribed beautiful stories in his soul gently carded through his hair. A silent forgiveness to match his silent apology. One that left his tongue heavy with words that had yet to take form. Words he didn’t know how to express.

“Sesshomaru, even if you leave me now. Leave because you wish to be unlike your father, wish to please your mother over your own happiness…even if now, you break my heart, and know there is nothing to forgive. I will always love you as much I will always have a  hold on your heart as you do mine…do you remember those words?” Harry’s deep voice was but a whisper, filled no accusation yet Sesshomaru felt like a chided child, hiding under the curtain of his hair.

He slowly lifted his head, Harry’s calloused hand falling to his marked cheeks, caressing soft skin.

He without thought clasped his clawed hand over his once lover, still lover if he would have him. Basking in the warmth that filled him. Eating away at the guilt he did not feel for leaving his mother.

The guilt for not being an emotionless being with this man. A man that would have his eyes soften and his stiff lips to blossom into the tiniest of smiles.

This witch with so many secrets. Secrets kissed down the planes of his back, the arch of his spine and the soft flesh of his thighs.

A worship.

“I hated you for them. Hated that you would dare to think someone like you could ever have a hold on me. Yet here I am, on my knees before begging forgiveness from my love, if you still—” Sesshomaru frowned, glaring at his lap from sounding so weak even if his hand tightened around Harry’s.

“You cold stubborn fool. It’s like I said…” Sesshomaru looked up to stare into a startling green. Losing himself in the darkness that lay there. The temptation that whispered in his ear and demand he submits. Let this man take all that he was as his defences fell like a broken bridge.

He didn’t even realize when he moved. When he had come so close that his lips were but a breath away from Harry who seemed almost cruel with his love, fingers buried in his silver hair.

Dominating. Unforgiving…a sweet temptation he had denied himself that the thought of their fiery love left him shivering with want for so much more.

He traced Harry’s features as if a man starved. The strong set of his jaw, his beard and equally cold and warm eyes. The smirk that stretched across dusky lips.

Lips he missed.

“I would bring you to the promised land. The land where the sun shines, and Hecate and Hades’ smile. Where the sky is never grey but for the night.” Harry whispered against his lover’s lips, watching as those beautiful golden eyes became half-lidded and the yokai prince fought to not take what he had yearned for.

Hearts raced, and above thunder continued to rumble, the first drop of rain began to fall.

“The Promised Land where you would gladly give unto me your soul, the very soul I will devour as you consume my own…” Harry kissed him then. A soft press of lips that Sesshomaru savoured. A taste and feeling he sought more of as he allowed himself to melt into his lover’s arms. Content to bask in languid kisses that lighted a million flames within. Left him trembling in want and desperate need as images of them in the Promise land consumed his being. Hands sought to leave him bare, strip him of his mark as a prince. Ravage his skin as they dipped under heavy robes, traced lightning into his very being and left his belly warm.

Love, devastating love poisoned him like his father and his lover.

He would be free with his cruel lover. The Witch who stole him from his mother in the dead of night and filed him with a burning desire matched by no other. The Witch he loved and was loved by in return.

How the mighty have fallen.

A Yokai Prince in love with A Whezken witch, willingly submitting to the trap of love ever so fleeting.


End file.
